Perfectly poor

The Safari took Frank out this morning just as the sun was dawning. The low sun positively glowed making it look like everything was bathed in fire. A Hedgehog was a real surprise and very welcome too, missed by Frank hehehehe. By the time he'd done wot a dog has to do and we got back inside and wrangled the camera from its bag we'd missed the best of the sunrise; the red ripples weren't so defined by now.

We got to Patch 2 and it was absolutely mint, barely a ripple, hardly any swell and excellent light. Just a shame there wasn't anything out there apart from about 750 Common Scoters.

The tide hadn't quite covered the beach at lunchtime and 30 Sandwich Terns were persistent in trying to roost being washed off every few minutes and quickly running out of room. Several more were out to sea but there wasn't anything else of note.

After work we had our usual monthly site visit to find out if we do still have Water Voles and/or Grass Snakes in town.

The vegetation has really grown and getting in to the site is tricky and full of prickly trip hazards. However there are rewards, the Purple Loosetrife was spectacular even though it's going past its best now and the clash of bight yellow Toadflax really brightened the place up on a gloomy afternoon.

Also prevalent were spiders there were thousands of them everywhere but we only saw one of these green ones. It's Araneus quadratus, normally we see them when they are browner.

Most were the much more common and should be familiar to everyone at this time of year Garden Cross Spider.

No sign of our intended as ever...maybe one day!!
Where to next? Patch 2 has to produce something one day we just hope it's tomorrow!
In the meantime let us know who's hanging around in your outback.